Chanco support staff continue strike

University of Malawi’s Chancellor College (Chanco) support staff have vowed to continue with industrial action to press for a pay rise.

The Chanco lecturers have accepted the 25 percent government offered, but lecturers at the Polytechnic in Malawi’s commercial city, Blantyre, have rejected the offer and are continuing with their strike as negotiations are still underway.

The workers at Chanco are demanding resignation of University Workers Trade Union president Franklin Kapeni, arguing he has let them down by informing them to return to work when there is no  communication in writing from the University of Malawi (Unima) Council about the salary increment.

An executive member of a workers’ trade union at Chanco, Billy Chibvundi, said they are not going to return to work without being given information on what was discussed and agreed between the mother union for all the colleges and the council.

But Kapeni said he is not going to step down, arguing the Chanco union has no mandate to call for his resignation as that can only come from a consensus from all the colleges.